~ in Amsterdam!

Tag Archives: restaurants

I crossed something off my “to-do” list last weekend. Amsterdam has a fast food place called FEBO that’s stuffed into areas all over town–usually near a collection of bars. Ever since we moved here I’ve been promising myself that I need to try it. It was a necessity! Why did it take me so long? Because the food comes from a vending machine.

This is strange to me. In my head I know it’s freshly made (well, ‘freshly’) and placed in the slots to keep warm until I come along. But my eyes want to say, “Are you crazy? That’s a vending machine!” So I required a lot of time and a night out to said bars before I worked up the courage to try it. Luckily for you it was well documented, so you can get the full feel of FEBO without the actual food.

The selection is a mix of traditional dutch food like krokets with the normal fast food burgers. There’s also a counter where you can order fries and smoothies and other made-more-fresh things. I went with the machine-food, of course. Jesse selected a kroket and I a burger, and we stuck our coins in the slot. After the “clink” I pulled open the little door and took out my prize. (I also learned that you must open the bottom door–the others stay locked.)

The verdicts. The kroket: yum! Crunchy and hot, full of meat-gravy goodness. I would get that again anytime. The burger: not so yum. It tasted like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a good long while. Which it had been. Surprise, surprise.

“FEBO– the most delicious!”

So, our FEBO experience was good and bad, like so much of life (what a life lesson I learned.) At least now I can say I’ve eaten a burger from a vending machine! I like to gauge reactions of my visiting friends when I tell them about it. Some have tried it gleefully, right away, while some have given me faces and swore they’d never touch it. What do you think–would you try FEBO?

One of my favorite bustling cafes in Amsterdam is the funky Latei, located just off the Nieuwmarkt in Chinatown.

It’s kind of a crazy mish-mash of a cafe, selling fresh olive oil from Italy, vegetarian Ethiopian meals on some weeknights, and a delicious apple tart. Oh, and everything is for sale. Everything–the art on the walls, the chair you sit on, everything. It’s a small, crowded place, but it’s warm and cozy in the winter and fresh and breezy in the summer. Plus, there’s a nice balcony above that gives great views.

And perhaps the best thing is the resident cat, Elvis (who does not leave the building, according to the sign on the door). Any cafe that comes with a sweet kitty is ok by me!

This was really exciting, because food carts are a pretty big deal in Portland, and I used to eat at them no less than three times a week. Moving to Amsterdam held a lot of new exciting things for us, but I still miss food carts and their cheap, delicious offerings. So when I saw the ad for the festival I knew I had to go there. It was lucky that our visiting friends were up for it, because we went on Friday, then again on Saturday! There were just too many choices to try them all in one go! We still didn’t try everything, but we made a heroic effort.

A few impressions. First, I love the name. Rollende Keuken: rolling kitchens. Perfect! Second, these carts were swanky! All dressed up, decorated, and tricked out. The sushi cart had a moving belt, the omelet cart had a coop with live chickens, there was a boat-cart, a church-cart, many buses, a VW bug, and more! All serving delicious food.

We had big plans for Valentine’s Day. No champagne and extravagant dinner, but instead a few hours of relaxing at a fancy-but-affordable spa, right downtown. It was going to be beautiful… until it was closed.

Luckily Amsterdam had more in store for us than a sad, cold walk home. We wandered around, soaking in the city, the melting ice on the canals, happy to be holding hands and enjoying life with each other. Eventually we made our way to the Nine Streets, and then to a tiny street behind those streets, the so-called “10th Street.” There, with bikes propped near the windows, a chocolate store beckoned us.

Chocolátl. It’s a beautiful little store. Clean white cabinets hold shelf after shelf of gourmet chocolate, sourced from all over. It’s an around the world in 80 bites dream, from Venezuela to Belgium to Missouri to a gorilla refuge in the Congo.

Then we saw this nestled in the corner:

Do you see it? It’s a poster of the Bridges of Portland, Oregon, sometimes known as Bridge City. When asked, the owner said, why, yes, he is from Portland! And we all marveled and made small noises of astonishment at the wide small-ness of the world, and the chances of finding someone from your home town, so far away from home.

Erik, the owner, and his wife have lived in Amsterdam for about three years now, and their store opened in December 2010. We chatted about Portland, about Amsterdam, about chocolate and more, and then he brought us our orders: two “shots” of smooth silky melted chocolate mixed with milk. Pure deliciousness. We relaxed at a long wooden table in the corner while another woman chatted with folks she had apparently just met. Chocolate brings people together.

Portland has it’s own similar shop, Cacao, but personally, I like Chocolátl better, if only for the encyclopedic passion Erik has for his treasure-filled store, and his happiness to share samples with you. We missed the sauna, but a Valentine’s Day date in a cozy chocolate store couldn’t have been planned more perfectly.

Check out a cute video of Chocolátl here. Find them on Facebook here. And best of all, visit them at Hazenstraat 25-A, Amsterdam. Valentine’s Day not required.

I have to admit that I’m a morning person. It’s not very trendy for a 20-something, but it’s time for me to just come out with it and embrace getting up at 8:30am on the weekend.

There are perks, though. Like the other day, when we celebrated morning by venturing out for breakfast. It was a cloudy day, and the silvery January light made it feel like it was much earlier than 10:00am. We strolled down the streets until we found our place of morning worship, which turned out to be the cutest cafe, and the best meal, that I just had to tell you about it.

Gartine, with a hidden 'G'

The cafe was called Gartine, which I found recommended online. Squished in a bustling downtown area, it’s on a little alleyway connecting busy Rokin and Kalverstraat. In the morning rain the alley look completely deserted, and I never would have noticed the small window if I wasn’t looking for it.

Inside was a warm, welcoming, cafe and patisserie. It was busy, but the owner squeezed us in before a reservation at the only table upstairs, giving us a perfect view of the whole cafe along with our own little nook. It was like being on the top bunk when you were a kid–it’s just so much cooler.

The food was French and Dutch inspired. The Large Breakfast came with coffee, fresh pulpy orange juice, an assortment of croissants and breads, homemade jam and butter, applesauce, a fried egg, cured meat, and aged cheese. A little bit of everything, just enough to fill me up without making me full. And the silverware and dishes! Mismatched, delicate, old, antique. Candles lit and stunning chandeliers hanging, fighting off the rainy gloom. Fresh flowers on the tables. The warm bustle of a busy kitchen serving delicious food.

Breakfast, as we all know, is an important meal. Though brunch is unfortunately not a big item in Amsterdam, we do have a lot of choices for the first meal of the day.

The normal, every-day thing is hagelslag, delicious chocolate sprinkles intended for kids. But why should they have all the fun? And all the chocolate? Hagelslag is normally sprinkled on top of buttered toast so the heat slowly melts the chocolate. I’ve found something even more delicious, though, and use nutella or gingerbread speculoos paste as the base for the toast, then a layer of sprinkles on top. Yum, yum!

Nutella and hagelslag on toast, with an unfortunate hole in the middle. It came that way.

The more gourmet meal is pannenkoeken (although seriously, what’s more gourmet than dark chocolate sprinkles for breakfast?). Pannenkoeken is a cross between an American pancake and a French crepe, thinner than the former and thicker than the latter. They are often covered in stroop, a caramel syrup that’s thick and sweet. It’s times like this that I remember that maple syrup is really only a North American thing, isn’t it?

Two pannenkoeken, the box of mix, stroop, and coffee. Delicious!

In restaurants across the city pannenkoeken are served with all manner of toppings and stuffings, both sweet and savory. They cover the whole plate, and depending on what toppings you get, could require more than one person to finish. Back in December we went to a cozy little place in the Jordaan called Pancakes!Amsterdam and enjoyed a pannekoek each, leaving stuffed and happy. We also left with a free wooden clog keychain. Score.

The slightly blurry restarant version: veggies with pesto sauce

Breads, cheeses, fruit, coffee, tea, yogurt, muesli, freshly squeezed orange juice, and just plain cereal are also enjoyed here for breakfast. But I don’t have any pictures of those, and I’m keeping this post short and sweet.

So there you have it: hagelslag and pannenkoeken, two Dutch breakfast specialties I’ve fallen for completely. I might go sprinkle some hagelslag on something right now…

In my last post, I mentioned that I was feeling a bit homesick, which is still true. But there’s no better way to cure that than a lovely date by bike with someone you love!

A few nights ago we headed out on the town to a Cafe Luxembourg (we heard they had a good burger). I made Jesse stop to take pictures on the way, because it’s not every day you dress up to bike through a gorgeous city on a beautiful fall evening.

We had a wonderful time. We ate, we drank, we talked about the past and the future and our feelings. All those things you do on dates. The burger was indeed delicious, and the smoked salmon salad (above) was divine. Cafe Luxembourg sits on Spuistraat almost in the center of town, and the outdoor covered patio was the perfect place to watch people go by.

[A digression: Speaking of homesickness, we both admitted that we miss Portland food. I am positive that Amsterdam has those cheap, delicious places, but we haven’t found them yet. In the meantime the memory of enough delicious Thai curry to feed both of us for $5 is painful when we fork out €16 for a burger. Also, I have night sweats for Mexican food.]

After our meal we wandered over to the Keizergracht canal and watched the sunset light up the canal houses for awhile. Another wine bar, another drink, another cozy conversation, then we were headed back home.

On the way back home, following Jesse, I snapped this picture without looking.

I realize it’s a little off to post about a Mexican restaurant on St. Patrick’s Day. But I’m not Irish, so St. Paddy will forgive me, I’m sure.

We tried a new restaurant on Monday night: La Calaca Comelona (“The Hungry Skeleton”), on SE 23rd and Belmont. It was an instant favorite. It’s ironic, actually, because we used to live 3 blocks away from it, but never tried it. Now we live across town, but decided to make the trip. And hooray that we did, because it was so good! Besides a lot of burritos and taco stands, we don’t actually have a good selection of tasty Mexican food around, so it was quite a nice change from a giant burrito. They make everything from scratch there, from the salsas to the tortillas, and it all tastes so delicious. A friend asked “Isn’t that the place where they don’t serve you chips and salsa?” Well…yes. But it doesn’t matter. They do give you different salsas to drench on your food, and that’s all you need. And the food!

It’s inspired by central and southern traditional Mexican, and look nothing like what you’d see at the local burrito stand. They have a short menu, almost like a lunch menu, that has tacos, sopas, and tostadas to choose from, with varying ingredients, for a little as $6-7. Then the dinner menu has bigger entrees, a bit higher priced, that are delicious and wonderful.We decided to share the pulled pork sopa: a mixture of pulled pork, cabbage, and salsa over a thick corn tortilla. And then we split the Blackberry Mole over Chicken, with pears. We just had to try that once we saw it. It was a perfect mole–a little smoky, but with a fruity taste from the blackberries. As good as that description sounds, though, we both preferred the sopa! It was a bit stronger in flavor, I think.I sipped my horchata throughout the meal, and we gazed on the slightly creepy Day of the Dead skeletons hanging around as decor. They’re brightly colored, so they come off as happily eerie. The whole atmosphere and the food all brought me back to our honeymoon in Santa Fe.

I’ve never been to Sweden. The closest I’ve come, like many people, is Ikea, which is overwhelming and impressive in it’s clean lines and organizational mastery.

But recently I’ve stepped beyond Ikea to discover that one of my favorite little nooks of this city is a Swedish restaurant called Broder (“brother” in Swedish). Purveyor of all things Scandinavian, this itty bitty place has the modernity and class you might expect, with amazingly good food. It also has “WC” on the bathroom door, which just makes me happy.

I constantly beg Jesse to take me there for brunch, to get a good helping of aebleskivers (puffy little Danish pancakes) or pytti i panna (hash with potatoes and eggs).

One of the best things about the meal, in my opinion, is that it comes on individual wooden boards, with little frying pans for the eggs, and little bowls for the jam. It satisfies my “cute” longing while being superbly functional. And when you finish every bite, you get the feeling that you’re quite satisfied. You’ve eaten just enough food–any more or less would have been catastrophic. But another look at the menu and you know you have to come back, at least just to try the Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam, or the Breakfast Bord (brown bread, soft-boiled egg, gravlax, sauteed greens, hard and soft cheese, fruit compote, lingonberry, yogurt and honey).

Top the meal off with hot coffee, and you’re ready for the day!

Broder is on the corner of SE 16th and Clinton, and is open for breakfast and lunch. Meals are about $9-11. Happiness (or at least immense satisfaction) is guaranteed.